Tuesday PM Update: LP Field and Bridgestone Arena Damage

((HT: WSMV-TV/Nashville))

Terry Bulger from NBC4 gives us an update on the downtown sports facilities that were slapped around pretty good by the Nashville floods...

Here's the story at the end of their late night newscast from Monday night...
Plus some commercials and a story about a possum...

DEVELOPING STORY: LP Field and Bridgestone Arena Flooded

The Nashville flooding is of, what the locals are calling, a 100-500-year flood...

It's bad news, folks...

From a sports perspective, both the Bridgestone Arena and LP Field are now underwater to varying degrees.

Here's video of LP Field's field underwater...
((HT: The Tennessean))


Bryan Mullen's update from the Tennessean has your LP update and the reason the field was getting water:

A Nashville Electric Service substation had to be shut down because it was being threatened with flood waters. When the substation shut down, it cut power to the stadium, which cut power to the stadium’s pumps.

A two-day cause-and-effect for a lot of long-term damage...
Within the last hour, the home of the Nashville Predators, now-Bridgestone Arena, has water on the ice level. Everything below is dressing rooms, and expensive video equipment...

Just what the Preds need right now...
Here's coverage from downtown with Dawn Davenport, Anne Holt, and John Dwyer... ((HT: WKRN-TV2/Nashville))


Additional coverage of LP, downtown, and Opryland is below with Dwyer, Erin Holt, Bob Mueller, and Justin Bruce...


WKRN's live coverage can be followed here...

Sports Authority Member Wants More from Preds Suite Idea

((HT: Tennessean/Cass))

A proposal to create a large luxury suite at Sommet Center should look to generate more money for the city, the head of a Metro Sports Authority committee told Nashville Predators officials today.

“We’d like to see some of that gain, too. … Maybe not a 50-50 split, but something,” said Rusty Lawrence, chairman of the authority’s Finance and Audit Committee.

The Predators agreed to look at the idea but said they deserve to get the great majority of the revenue because they would take all of the risk in remodeling part of the arena.

“If this flops, we’re a half-million dollars in the hole, and maybe more,” said Ed Lang, the hockey club’s president of business operations. “If the city wants to take some of the risk, great. But the idea is that we’re trying to improve the building and increase revenue.”

The Predators want to turn two club-level sections into a 130-seat area for “high net worth individuals” and small and mid-sized companies, which would pay $20,000 per year per seat to attend all events at Sommet Center.

If the area sells out, Lawrence said, the Predators should net about $2 million a year after paying for renovations and other expenses. The team’s projections show the city making an additional $154,000 a year starting in the second year, 2010-11, based on sales tax, rent, concessions and seat use charges.

Lawrence said the city has already done its part to help the Predators by building the arena. But Lang said the city built the facility for itself in the mid-1990s, before it knew the Predators would be the main tenant.

The Predators’ sister company, Powers Management, runs the arena under a contract with Metro.

In other business, the Tennessee Titans said they would have about 150 TV sets to give the city next month after replacing them with flat-screen, high-definition TVs on the club level at LP Field. Sports authority members said they would look for other Metro agencies, like hospitals or schools, that might be able to use them.

And all the above story does is give us the excuse to play this...